The Knights Watchman

Rutgers' @CoachChrisAsh fields questions from the media as @RFootball gets ready for the 2017 season. #B1GMediaDay https://t.co/M2IX2sjkur — Rutgers On BTN (@RutgersOnBTN) July 25, 2017 Rutgers head football coach Chris Ash took the podium on Wednesday for his Big Ten Media Day press conference and a sit-down interview with the BTN Live team. The above link from BTN.com has the complete video of the press conference. At the end of this article, you'll find the link to the BTN Live interview. The complete text of the press conference can be found at Scarletknights.com These were the things that stuck out to me: In his opening comments, Ash said that 2016 "was awful. But we've moved on." Moving on and "hitting the reset button" were common themes that Ash was imparting to the media. Ash mentioned the facilities, particularly the Marco Battaglia Practice Facility which will aid in both "recruiting and player development....

For a number of years, a point of pride for Rutgers fans was the football program's rank in the top 10 percent of schools in Academic Progress Rate, APR for short. APR is a metric used to assess how well players are doing academically with an emphasis on the number of players who remain eligible, are still with the team from the year before, and how many have graduated from the institution. Last year, after accounting for the dismissals and other roster turnover during the 2014–15 academic year, the team had dipped well out of the top percent with a score of 948. This year the score increased thirty-three points to 981. Although not back in the top 10 percent of all football programs, it was tied for sixth in the Big Ten. To me, it's an indicator of the progress being made by the program under Chris Ash. For more information on the APR boost, check out this article by J.P. Pelzman of the Asbury Park Press , which sums it up nicely. In addition, scarletknights.co...